


Reconstruction.

by tucuxi



Series: Through the looking-glass: Naruto genderswap!AU [6]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Genderbending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-22
Updated: 2011-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:04:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tucuxi/pseuds/tucuxi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Soon enough, she is just  Hound, a faceless guard and guardian for Konoha.</i></p><p>Kakashi joins ANBU shortly after the end of the war.</p><p>Part of the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/6842">Through the Looking-Glass</a> genderswap AU universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reconstruction.

The Yondaime and his wife (no longer Minato-sensei and Kushina, not in death) die on the night of the Kyuubi attack, along with hundreds of other people. At the memorial service, through the haze of grief and injury and constant, constant observation for danger, Kakashi realizes that she knows more of the people listed on the stone than survivors standing around her. She is surrounded by widows and parents and orphans, and she only knows a handful of them by name.

Kakashi throws herself into work, into reconstruction, into training. When she is offered a spot in ANBU, she takes the mask gladly, accepting the tattoo as if it is her birthright. (And in a way, it is.) She becomes the Hound of Konoha, who almost never speaks, and her ANBU uniform, with its generic armor and forearm-guards helps disguise her figure, her thin wrists: she has never had hips worth speaking of, and her shoulders are muscled enough to belong to a teenage boy. She presents as androgynous a figure as she can, hoping that the faceless strangers she works with in ANBU won’t judge her on her looks or her sex if they can’t see them right away, though she can’t hide the fact that her tattoo is on her right shoulder. Soon enough, she is just Hound, a faceless guard and guardian for Konoha.

ANBU missions are either boring or horrifying. She works with other faceless shinobi, cats and birds and creatures from myth, and they watch visitors to Konoha, kill innocents, assassins and political targets; they take on the strongest S-rank missing nin in the bingo book, should they prove an immediate danger; they guard the Sandaime visibly and invisibly. ANBU defends Konoha in ways most of its citizens will never, ever know. The nightmares are terrible for the first three months: then, like a switch flicking off, they stop entirely. Kakashi puts herself aside, hollows herself out, becomes nothing but the Hound, a tool for Konoha’s use, a tool whose only quirk is the unwillingness to leave comrades behind, an unswerving insistence on salvaging both her teammate’s lives and the mission’s objectives. It is the only mark of personality she allows herself to have: Hound rarely speaks aloud.

When she is sixteen, and has been in ANBU for just over a year, Cat follows her down to the river at the tail end of a mission, and helps her rinse her armor off: this mission was messy from the start, and the newest member of their team froze up mid-way through, making it even worse. Kakashi has blood in her hair, and knows it will itch once it dries, resigned to it: she never removes the mask in public, trusting to its attached cowl and hood to keep her distinctive hair color hidden from view.

“Let me give you a hand with that,” Cat says, holding out a hand for her vest, and by now she has worked with him long enough to trust him to clean it well and hand it back promptly. She unbuckles the shoulder-straps, and strips it off, then looks longingly at the river. She is drenched in blood, and can feel her shirt and pants sticking to her. If she were alone and within their perimeter, she would risk stripping just enough to rinse her clothes, to get herself slightly cleaner. But Cat is right behind her, so she just wades out and ducks under the water, letting the current carry away much of the blood, leaving her drenched from head to foot, and glad their uniforms dry quickly.

This is backwards: she should only be willing to strip with a teammate within sight, not just earshot, but it’s not against the regulations, and Kakashi has grown body-shy over the last couple of years, as things have changed. Cat rinses her vest, cleaning off the worst of the stains without wetting her scrolls, and she wades back to the bank.

He hands her vest back without a word, and they walk back to camp together, a tall man with broad shoulders and a teenager, slim and narrow-hipped.

* * *

Cat dies on a mission when she is nineteen, along with the rest of her squad: Hare, who was her squad leader, and Sparrow, a medi-nin whose identity had been obvious to her even before she opened her mouth.

Hound was not with them: she was in the hospital recovering from an injury incurred during the previous mission. She knows better than to what-if: they are dead, and nothing can change that. (She has known this, to some extent, since she was eight years old.) Still, she allows herself a moment of regret, before adding their names to her list. Rin she places in the corner of her mind that remembers her father, Obito and Minato-sensei; Cat and Hare she adds to the ever-growing list of ANBU teammates who haven’t come home.

When she is released from the hospital, she is her squad’s leader, and there are three new ANBU behind almost-familiar masks. She looks them over: Sparrow is a tall, heavily built man, Hare a slim young woman, and Cat is a slightly gawky teenage boy. This is her new four-man team.

“All right,” she says: “here’s the first rule: we don’t abandon our teammates.” She sees Cat about to protest, and holds up a hand. “I know the code, Cat. Those who break the rules are trash. But,” and she looks at each of them directly, with both eyes open behind the mask for a moment, “a shinobi who abandons his friends is worse than trash.”

She’s met one or two ANBU who will not abide by her rule, emotionless and hard, willing to sacrifice anything for the sake of the mission. She understands them better than they guess; she refuses to work on their teams. It is the only demand Hound ever makes: she has never turned down a mission for fear of risk or death or capture. She hopes Cat is green, still wedded to the Code, and not another emotionless shinobi-construct.

“We’re going into Mist to track one of the Seven Swordsmen,” she says. “We meet in two hours at the gate.”

All three turn and disappear swiftly, slipping off to gather what little isn't ready to go. Kakashi watches the boy running away across rooftops and wonders. Time will tell.


End file.
